Nature is a cruel lover. Darwin told us that in nature the strong survive. This thinning process culminates in a focused gene pool that allows dominate traits and survival skills to be passed from one generation to the next. Examples of this are plenty in the animal kingdom. When an animal becomes injured it's left for dead. If animals are born that cannot fend for itself they are killed. When a lion becomes too old to manage it's pride it's overthrown by a younger and stronger lion. There is very little nurturing in nature. If you cannot survive, you die. Period.

Mankind on the other hand is 'above' animals. We have compassion, we have sympathy. We nuture our weak. We take people that cannot survive and we assist them. We reward an individual that cannot fend for oneself by fending for him. This is the humane thing to do of course.

By allowing the weak to survive we are of course bucking the nature of evolution. We pollute our gene pool by allowing these non-survivors the opportunity to breed this trait. Humankind is reaching a peak of evolution. As non-survival (weaker) traits become more and more dominant our culture, our society, our species will begin a progressively faster descent in deevolution.

Of course at some point we will deevolve to the point where compassion and sympathy are no longer an issue, more basic and animal instincts of survival will once again become the predominent selector in whom lives and dies. The trend will reverse itself and our gene pool will once again begin to evolve. What a cycle this would be.


First let me state that by no means am I an expert or even knowledgable in any of the things I'm tossing out there. This is by no means a call to weed out our society of the weak and malformed. This was just something that came across my thought process and I found it to be an interesting theory. Pick it apart, criticize it. Enhance it, change it. What you choose to do with the line of thought is of course yours to make. If anyone finds this of interest, I have enough thoughts on the matter to fill many more pages on the subject however I didn't want to create a novel of a post.

I read your posting and understand that it is a potential observation from yourself, rather than a call to arms.

Yes. I do agree that at some point sympathy will be lost as survival kicks in, but at what point?
Some large disasters where you would expect sympathy to be lost are the Asian tsunami and hurricane Katrina, yet even in these disasters where materialistic items are of little value, not only the world, but at ground level people still aided each other where possible.

An event to bring this idea would have to be a global event. At an extreme take an asteroid impact. Straight away the population will reduce (irrespective of ethnic origin, sex, age etc....), but then amount of food will dictate a stable population and weak or those with little drive and idea will die.

Humans have a difference in animals whereby someone considered weak in illness, injury etc.... can have knowledge or ability to offer whereby they are required.

Stephen Hawkins would argueably not have lived had he been born in the 18th centuary, yet today he is one of the most important people in his field.

Without technology and modern civilisation you will read that tribes always respect their elder and will do all that is possible to prolong the life.

Yes I agree with your thoughts, but can not find a situation that would bring down society globally or rapidly.

regards

An extremely valid point. We as humans do bring more to the table than just our ability to survive. Hawkins is a great example, however he's a rare one as well. The exception to the rule you might say. It's not just the physical traits I refer to when I think of our society in terms of weakness. We have encouraged dependency and neediness. Our welfare systems and our catering to those that are not strong enough to provide for themselves.

I do not see this theory as something that would be played out anytime soon. Just as evolution is a process that takes hundreds of thousands of years to slowly push us in the right direction, deevolution as well would be an extremely slow process. We are at or near the pinnacle of evolution today. You see all around us our compassion weakening our society (in strict terms of the passing of genes!). If we continue to cater to the weakest link of the chain then the chain itself will become increasingly weaker!

where did you get this info from?

What info do you refer to? This is just a theory that I've given some thought to. With the exception of the reference to Darwin, everything I wrote came from my thoughts on the subject.

oh sorry, it just sounded very profeesional.

Taking genes, then I would argue the new science in the world of medicine is genetics. I do not read up on daily news and only catch the major discoveries, but more and more errors are being found in single genes and the ability to correct is on the horizon.

Should a point in time arise where the very nature of humans are at risk, then money will very quickly move in the direction of genetics.

Is it true genes can be amended at single cell/ stem cell stage or is this experimental still?

The day that genes become a growing issue will be the same day ethics are taken from medicine...., and then that will be one interesting time.

Is a weakening of genes actually a strength?

For reasons I have not looked into, elephants are always characterised by their tusks (bar Dumbo).
There must have been some natural reason for the tusks and string genes would produce larger tusks.

These large tusks were/ are a target for poachers.

Suddenly the balance changes...... A weak pool of genes for tusk generation create an elephant not interesting the poacher, but continuing the species -

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199809/0534.html

Great point! Perhaps we are 'deevolving' to further our species. Becoming much more intellectual, more spiritual, more dependant upon things other than our brute force to survive. Give me some time to absorb the thought and I'll post again tommorow morning. Great thinking by the way.

You got it all wrong...the only reason large tusks are being hard to find is because those elephants are poached...If you go out into the wilderness in Africa, you'll see several large tusks. Large tusks is still the favorable trait.

Deevolution is not possible, but evolving a ancestral trait or something as a coicedence is possible...but very rare.


In research, genetics and neuroscience has always been the hottest topics...The lab I work at works in cancer research, mainly prostate cancer. We find many chromosomal abberations in cancers, and then pinpoint the gene by FISH mapping and cDNA microarrays.

*my sig*

Agreed..... These elephants are desirable, and say 10,000 years ago were totally dominant in beating competition and carrying their genes on to a new generation.

What I suggest is that these strong gene producing tusks create a new enemy to the elephant in man.
You still have the `weak` elephant, but instead of being beaten into submission it finds there is less competition in the field.

I am not talking about the next 5 years, and probably not the next 500, but I would suggest if events continue that large tusks would be the exception rather than the current trait.

The article mentions 70% are large tusked, which is obviously the majority, but not the majority it once was.

This idea will become obsolete should poaching be wiped to a level where it does not affect elephant population as once again the dominant large tusk would spread the gene pool once more.

While I think on it...... I am guessing there is not an actual definative answer. This is more an opinion perhaps, so in time we could both be right, or myself wrong and you right.....


Peace

To me this is positive evolution.
It is the only way to go forward into a future age of tech where a single person with a single thought can destroy an entire world that is unprotected.

This is beginning to sound like the media perception of what an alien should or is expected to be.

Brought me thinking this link, so thankyou a4mula. This is the pre-requisit to many discussions on the ET forum.

For the record I would like to believe in ET, but don't. I hope to be proven wrong one day.

Good post. This thought has been on my mind for the past few years.

I really don't agree with the following quote by someone in here



This is taking the idea of a4mula's negative "Human Deevolution" and turning it into something positive, which is unforutanetly not correct.

I think its the complete opposite infact, I think we are absolutely not becoming more intellectual - while we are certainly becoming more advanced technologically - this technolgy is almost a substitute for the average persons intelligence. Not only are we catering for mentally and physically disabled people, we are simply catering for stupid people and even promoting people to use technology instead of thier brain.

But the main point is a4mula's, where in the wild mentally ill, physically ill and plain stupid people would not last 5 minutes, they are actually helped survive and are even allowed to breed in society.

And while there are for sure rare examples, like hawkings, where the result of nurturing a disabled body becomes a positive contriubution to a civilisation, unfortunately it is just that - a very, very rare example.

The average human is becoming more stupid and less self reliant by the day

I think the scariest thing is two complete and utter sensless morons can bring new life into the world. Scary

It happens

Sorry but I dont get the point of this post?

Totally brainless people raise kids...Leave them in a room full of rats, etc.l

The introduction of blonde hair is believed to have been brought about as a attraction technique evolved in northern Europe [1] . Recent studies have suggested that within 200 years, blonde hair could become extinct [2]. In my humble opinion this would be an example of 'deevolution'. It's just one example but I think it shows that it is quite possible indeed.


I've given some more thought to the elephant example from earlier. I believe that even if they lost their tusks, you could still consider that a form of evolution because it is furthering their survivability. However in the case of humans, I see no indication that by catering to the weakest members of society we are improving our gene pool.

I do accept the fact that within the next few hundred years it'll be quite possible to engineer our DNA. While this theory may have no bearing on the future of mankind due to this ability I do believe it still speaks leagues about our current culture and society.

Many great thoughts here, please keep them coming.

"Genes don't die out unless there is a disadvantage of having that gene or by chance. They don't disappear," he told BBC News Online.

"The only reason blondes would disappear is if having the gene was a disadvantage and I do not think that is the case.

"The frequency of blondes may drop but they won't disappear."

Straight from the link That was crossing my mind. Like I said...DE-EVOLUTION is impossible....evolution is adapting to the environment...You can't unadapt. It would just be a coincedence, and be called evolution. Blondes won't die out

If you have any questions about genetics/genomics/proteomic, feel free to ask.

You should have been a politician! Those lines were in rebuttal to the German experts that produced the results, not the comments of the report itself. Deevolution in nature might not be possible, however our society is far from natural. Evolution is based on the idea that the best genes are passed to offspring through natural selection. We are directly defying natural selection today.

We allow dominant flawed genes to be integrated into our breeding pool. Alchoholism, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Down Syndrom, Cystic Fibrosis, the list goes on and on. These diseases aren't on the decline, they are increasing! Those are just physical effects. Psychologically we're also breeding destitute and cradle to grave welfare idealisms. We enforce the idea that it's OK to be subpar. That's it's ok to not survive on your own. Again these numbers aren't decreasing but increasing. It's a culminating effect, it's like compounding interest. The longer we cater to the weakest segment of society the greater effect it's going to have on society as a whole. This in my opinion is no doubt leading to our deevolution. While we might not be 'losing' anything we're increasing the chances of passing 'bad' genes.

This is simply amazing, I recently wrote a speech about the same exact thing! However mine was a bit more assertive, but same sbject matter nonetheless. I personally think we should not allow people with genetic disorders to reproduce as it just causes more genetic disorders. This way our race will be one of strong, healty people, not of fat a$$es too lazy to do anything.

I think deevolution is possible in the aspect that it is a person's opinion basically saying evolution can be negative. So it is actually evolution, but since the person thinks its bad they call deevolution, so actually its evolution. Hahaha I hope I got my point accross.

Accepting your offer.... what is the cure for cancer?

That could be seen as discrimination...


Imatinib (Glivec) is the closest thing...It treats Chronic myeloid leukemias.


By picking mates, that's natural selection Sexual selection to be precise.


Many have been stable, such as Down's, as the chance is totally Random. Parkinson's and alzheimer's can be related to natural CNS degeneration. We are not actually increasing the incidence of those diseases.
If you have a link, that would be appreciated.

In that sense of the word, as "negative" evolution, Yes

natural selection
n.

The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated.


Mortality Rates from Genetic Disorders 1979-1992

Try this with google:
Any Genetic Disorder You'd Like to Find + "on the rise"
Everyone I searched for showed increases over the past decades.

Not looking to make this personal in any respect, so please take as an example rather than championing a cause -

My partner and I are unfortunate enough to hold a combination of genes whereby there is a risk that a child born to us suffers a disability to the brain.

This was unfortunately confirmed as our son was born with hydrocephalus and since shunting has acquired epilepsy.
With hard work we are getting him to understand, walk (can now) and reason, but his development is 30% behind his age.

Currently we are getting him to be as less reliant on us as adults as any child of his age, and I look to him working whether in the field of science, bar work or volunteering work.

I would hate to think that my partner and I were not allowed to have a second child based on our genetics as we have love, time and our own resources (exclusing hospital treatment and medications required, but I pay my taxes etc...).

As I say I am not championing my situation and trying not to make personal, but placing as an example that can confront many many families.

kind regards

Sure, thats pretty much what I said, I just didnt understand why you felt the need to say "it happens" after I just said it did.

I wasn't even strictly talking about parents who neglect and abuse their children, I simply meant morons who can bring children into this world, even if they spoil them. These kids still grow up to be fat stupid unhealthy idiots who then go and make more children

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006300462,00.html

You will probably know this link, but it is rather embarrassing!

Yea thats pretty sad, I did a quick search and stumbled across this, rather amusing

Young MacDonald had f**k
Ee aye ee aye oh
And from that f**k he had a kid
Ee aye ee aye oh
With a f**k f**k here
And a f**k f**k there
Here a kid
There a kid
Everywhere, a kid kid
Young MacDonald had a f**k
Ee aye ee aye oh

Its basic evolution! Sexual selection is part of natural selection


I printed the paper out and read it. It doesn't mention the rise of the most prevalent neurological disorders. I assure you they are not the cause of people breeding. The only one that CAN be is Huntington's Chorea...since it has a tri-nucleotide repeat, genetic anticipation occurs...in even the healthiest and strongest of induviduals.

from site

The upward trend we detected for the deaths with genetic diseases was most likely related to improved recognition and reporting of some genetic diseases rather than to the increased prevalence.

Medicine and Genetics are great fields to work in New discoveries every day.

humans cannot evolve back into apess because evolution says the sucessful survive so why would humans go from a world dominating superpredator that the only challenge in its way is weather and our technology could alter weather in the fuuture, to an unsuccessful, stupid being that is being chased by predators and only a hand full survive from birth to adult hood.

Your view is a little skewed...who knows, maybe selective pressure in the future will favor aquatic animals only...

Indeed, sexual selection is part of natural selection. However, it comprises only half of it. This would be all well and good if human sexual selection did its part to insure superior genes but the data suggests otherwise. Its been found that better educated women in prosperous nations have a much lower reproduction rate than their lower educated counterparts which I suppose is common sense if you note the welfare queen with several illegitimate children.

Reminds me of an advert..... Forget which beer, but goes something like this....

*beer brand* Helping men get laid since 1884.

With our increasing dependence on technology (guns included,) the line between "Weak" and "Strong" in the game of survival is blurred.

de-evolution.. reminds of ferris bueller's car when they tried to run it in reverse to get the miles off )

I've stumbled upon this topic in my search for human deevolution... and while the topic has been dormant a long while, I want to add in my $.02:

It's not a question of will we de-evolve... it's happening right now.

In my own subset of evolution theory.. if you're not evolving, you're deevolving. As was stated in the original post... evolution is the survival of the fittest. And whether it be speed, endurance, strength, or mental capabilities or any number of characteristics, it happens at every generations level in nature. Humans, however, are NOT normal nature!

The male/female mating scenario is a mutually beneficial one. The strongest genetic male mates with as many females as possible, producing a vast number of progeny. Some being female, some male. Those in turn, will fight it out however that species determines its genetic fitness, and they, in turn, mate and continue the process. This secures that not only the males have superior genetics, but the females as well.

Now turn it into a position where there is no competitive selection process. One where its not necessary to distinguish any superior males. The weaker are allowed to breed, thus producing not only genetically inferior males but also females. Continue on in this path for a few generations, and you will certainly be filled with a mass of animals much weaker than the preselective mix.

Now let's look at the human species. Up until 130ish years ago, humans were very susceptible to various natural diseases. A woman born in the 1820's might have given birth to 13 children. Of those, 5 might have lived to be able to have their own children. The rest would die to TB, smallpox, etc. With the onset of man made medicines and vaccines, the human race was given the chance to enlarge its number from a previous maximum of around 80 million planet wide. Modern vaccines alone have allowed for billions of people that would have previously died from common illnesses that, given time, we could have evolutionarily become immune to. And while you might argue that the genetics for our ability to evolve to these diseases might still be in place, the chances are the with a few dozen generations of breeding of those that would never be able to resist these diseases.... it would be futile.

Mating in itself is a random mix of male and female genes. Inevitably, in each generation, inferior offspring are created. Not even superior genetics from both parents guarantee that their genetic line will superior with every single offspring. If that were the case, then eventually, a single genetic line would eventually emerge that would be able to continuously create offspring with whom neither disease nor conflict would be able to keep their numbers from increasing to the point of uncontrolled and uninhibited procreation.

Another aspect is common immune deficiencies. The rates of children with common immune deficiencies such as allergies has increased exponentially in the last 100 years. Asthma, common allergies are both effects of deevolution. Even common basic genetic problems, that when in nature would certainly lead to death, like diabetes and bad eyesight are now easily accommodated for.

Should a massive global catastrophe take place, the amount of human death outside of the cause of the disaster itself would be tremendous. Should supply lines of medicine, vaccines and other means of support for the vast amounts of human dependent on those be cut death would be almost assumed.

The real problem is upcoming. Modern medicine has produced the very problem that is going to make our survival a mess. I'm talking about antibiotics. Where vaccines fail they take over. And where they fail, the human race might just wind up meeting its end. In an extreme case let's take the world's most superior genetic human example. The very last of a line of humans that, and I would say would almost have to be an accident, best case genetic make up. I mean as though he was the best genetic sample around whose parents were also, and so forth backwards the last 200 years. He goes to a hospital where he is diagnosed with a bacterial infection that even his immune system can't handle. The antibiotics fail him. What chance does the rest of the human population stand against such a bug?

I know what you're saying. What about the extreme variation in the human genetic make up around the world? Wont some of them have a natural immunity to this disease? Yes, they will! But given what our gene pool has deteriorated into, what good is it if the only people that survive the bacterial onslaught all are, at best, only hindered by 3 or 4 genetic problems that would most certainly mean utter death in the natural world?

My fear is that when the human race is faced with having to deal with real evolution again, it wont be too late.

Take this as you will... its just my opinion...

Bob

Is human evolution taking us further and further into specialisation though? Take our relationship with technology. Is our ever increasing dependence on machines going to reduce us to a fragile future existence where our reliance on machines for survival could tip the balance towards our extinction? We can potentially overcome virtually any genetic and environmental issues using technology but is that actually improving our 'fitness' as a species or actually reducing our survival ability by breeding out adaptability?

Humanity has risen to be the dominant species today because of it's lack of specialisation. We developed our brain because we didn't have any specialist method of survival. Will the over-reliance on that brain be our downfall?

Just a thought or two to throw into the mix.

maybe ther is to evolutions the de-evolution and the further evelution. the de-evolution is not deniable to says it is not happening the "smart people" have less kids in average, then the "less smart" (IQ).
but ther is probably a few people that are furthering the evolution and will probably develop new "skills" and opening new doors to the brain that we didn`t know exist.
i have a longer and more specific version of this theory.

I have also contemplated these things over the past few years. Also, consider the elective plastic surgery going on these days - especially breast implants. Think of the implications this has for our reproductive future and a future mother's ability to feed their offspring. And other things: there's a reason certain nose, cheekbone shapes and artifacts of aging are undesirable - all of which we are circumventing (again, all in the name of being "humane" (or is it just being vain?)).

Actually, if you think about it, medical technologists and practitioners are ensuring their futures - the more genetically undesirable traits they can cosmetically "fix" now, the more will be propagated in the future, the more they will have to fix, ad infinitum. . .

The future is genetic and epigenetic modification via various vectors (viruses and such) that will, sometime post-conception, correct the malformed human. This, of course smacks of any one of a number of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes. One particular Twilight Zone episode comes to mind - the one of the girl that must choose one of only a few idyllic face and body types. Is this to become our future as a human race? I make no judgments on all of this "right" or "wrong"; our genetic and technological evolution is what it is to be. These are all points (some would say ethical points) that we must ponder as a species.

As far as "devolution" of our species goes - it could very well be that this artifact of our medical technology success will propel us into a realm of engineered evolution into something far greater than we are now (you can safely ignore the Star Trek episodes involving Kahn and the other super-race engineered psychopathic beings going awry and being dangerous). There is no evidence what-so-ever that naturally occurring (genetically inherited or mutated) great intellectual and physical prowess goes hand in hand with any kind of psychosis, pathologies or any other mental or emotional defect. In fact, some of the most intelligent people are very apathetic and compassionate - in fact are not the very medical professionals pushing us into this realm some of the most intelligent among us humans? Is not compassion one of the principal motivating volitions for propelling them into the world of medicine? Why would we make any assumption about our enhancing physical and mental attributes in an engineered way would have an imbalancing effect on the being's psyche and mental health?

I foresee humans eventually creating new species and sub-species of ourselves - some adapted to water, some adapted to space travel, some adapted for war in various ways - what will we call ourselves then? In whose image will these engineered beings say they are created?

As it has been said before. we keep the weak, cause we have the power to heal the weak and make them stronger. something animals cannot do. we have sooo much more power in our brains then animals and a 2015 model computer!!!
We are higher up then animals, in the animal kingdom you have to kill to survive. humans we don't need to do that. animals have instict we have reason. animals and humans are totally two different spieces were different rules apply.

Im not sure what you mean by the thinning of the genes? Are you suggesting that genetic variation will decrease and we'll breed ourselves into a dead end? Since the creation of mass transport and travel Id expect the oposite to happen as once isolated gene pools are mixing with each other....there will be no thinning, just more variation.


And humans might try and look after the weaker members of their society now, but for millenia nobody bothered, and this low survival rate still didnt "weed them out" as it were.

I dont think there can be a "peak of Evolution". The context in which their could be a peak is constantly changing, the goalposts are always being moved a little furthur on.

Just some observations, unfortunatly its off the top of my head so will think a bit more to try and work out if I had a point or just wanted to modify your thoughts!

I don't know about that, the average IQ seems to be diminishing

Evolution is always going forwards. Just because the resultant change is a bad thing (i.e. IQ going down) doesn't mean evolution is going "backwards" or that we're "de-evolving". It's impossible to undo evolution.

Exactly, evolution goes forward...for better or worse. As for humanity becoming somehow *dumber*, I doubt this is actually correct. What I think is happening is that our technology is allowing us to experience our fellow humans (both the brilliant and the dense) far more "up close and personal" than ever before.

Hmmm lots of "I have no idea about evolution" comments. Firstly, for those saying we are going to evolve backwards or have stopped evolution this is impossible unless people suddenly have stopped reproducing!

Evolution is the change in traits over time, this is cannot be stopped and is random (just the change in traits from 1 generation to the next). The non-random guiding force this is natural selection. Now our technology has allowed us to by pass many "traditional" aspects of NS. Most of in the western world do not need to hunt or run from another predator everyday. However, we are still subject to NS. Everyday you encounter thousands of microorganisms. Even in the western world people die from these encounters. You can think of evolution as a arms race (like the cold war) except ~3 billion years in the making.

Unless we come to a point like the movie Gattaca and we no longer allow nature to play a role in our reproduction then evolution will plow forward.




An excellent point. People forget that evolution also involves extinction. There is no rule that evolving species will not go extinct. Extinction is normally a result of over specialization. As someone had brought up earlier (Think it was Leo), humans have survived and became what we are today because of lack of specialization. We were a jack of all trades and that allowed us to survive where other ape-men did not.

I think in most western countries the number of kids people have is inversely related to IQ. This strikes me as humanity becoming dumber.

I guess a non-subjective way of stating it would be that the ability to solve puzzles is no longer being selected as a positive trait.